y visitor at the Hall. We found him in his study; a
small dusky chamber, lighted by a lattice window that looked into the
church-yard, and was overshadowed by a yew-tree. His chair was
surrounded by folios and quartos, piled upon the floor, and his table
was covered with books and manuscripts. The cause of his seclusion was
a work which he had recently received, and with which he had retired
in rapture from the world, and shut himself up to enjoy a literary
honeymoon undisturbed. Never did boarding-school girl devour the pages
of a sentimental novel, or Don Quixote a chivalrous romance, with more
intense delight than did the little man banquet on the pages of this
delicious work. It was Dibdin's Bibliographical Tour; a work
calculated to have as intoxicating an effect on the imaginations of
literary antiquaries, as the adventures of the heroes of the round
table, on all true knights; or the tales of the early American
voyagers on the ardent spirits of the age, filling them with dreams of
Mexican and Peruvian mines, and of the golden realm of El Dorado.

The good parson had looked forward to this bibliographical expedition
as of far greater importance than those to Africa or the North Pole.
With what eagerness had he seized upon the history of the enterprise!
with what interest had he followed the redoubtable bibliographer and
his graphical squire in their adventurous roamings among Norman
castles, and cathedrals, and French libraries, and German convents and
universities; penetrating into the prison-houses of vellum
manuscripts, and exquisitely illuminated missals, and revealing their
beauties to the world!

When the parson had finished a rapturous eulogy on this most curious
and entertaining work, he drew forth from a little drawer a
manuscript, lately received from a correspondent, which had perplexed
him sadly. It was written in Norman French, in very ancient
characters, and so faded and mouldered away as to be almost illegible.
It was apparently an old Norman drinking song, that might have been
brought over by one of William the Conqueror's carousing followers.
The writing was just legible enough to keep a keen antiquity-hunter on
a doubtful chase; here and there he would be completely thrown out,
and then there would be a few words so plainly written as to put him
on the scent again. In this way he had been led on for a whole day,
until he had found himself completely at fault.

The Squire endeavoured to assist